At 09:26 PM 10/8/2008 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Hi Bob,
>
>No, it is not an RG battery - just a standard lead-acid battery. Looking at
>the Concorde website, I think it is a CB-35A. It is my understanding that
>the BatteryMinder is ok for this type of battery. Is that not true??
>
>Ok, will test it further.
>
>Thanks for the input!
>
>Jon
There's a lot of floobydust being thrown in the
air about suitability-to-task for the various
offerings in "smart chargers". Each manufacturer
has to figure out a way to make their product more
attractive to the consumer than their competition.
But it's beginning to be like laundry soap . . .
there's only so much you can do to make it "new
and improved" before practical benefits become
obscured by marketing hype.
The modus operandi for the vast majority of batteries
in mobile dc power supplies is such that they NEVER
see a plug-in-the-wall charger over the lifetime
of the battery. Consumers run'em 'til they drop and
put in new one. The benchmark for goodness is measured
in months of service . . . under as-installed operating
conditions.
Potions and notions for improved battery service life
have been around for decades. I recall ads in magazines
from when I was a kid touting magic juice or tablets that
one could put into a battery that would "rejuvenate
your ailing battery." The sundry notions for de-sulfating
an ageing battery by electrically hammering the oversized
crystals is another idea that has yet to emerge as a
"good thing to do" everywhere, all the time. One of the
things that consumers seldom considered was the value
of technological competition amongst battery makers and
alternator/regulator makers. If any after market enhancement
has a real return on investment, then the folks who make
millions of them every year have a greater interest
in the idea than the guy selling battery potions out
of the trunk of his car. I.e, if this is such a
good thing to do, why isn't it already being done?
Getting back to the Battery Tender as suited to task
on the flooded battery, ALL lead-acid batteries have
one thing in common . . . self discharge in storage.
I'm told that a strong forcing factor is the amount
of dissolved oxygen in the electrolyte. Sealed batteries
have very little, flooded batteries have a lot but
BOTH batteries will eventually run down just sitting.
The real goal of a battery maintenance charger is to
support the battery at some voltage just above its
open circuit potential at rest. This is a voltage
too low to overcharge the battery . . . but sufficient
to have self discharge currents be totally picked up
by the external energy supply. Once the battery
maintenance device senses that the battery is "topped
off" . . . it needs to shift gears from a CHARGER
to MAINTAINER like:
http://www.aeroelectric.com/Pictures/Curves/schumacher_3.jpg
http://www.aeroelectric.com/Pictures/Curves/schumacher_5.jpg
Now, one can slice and dice the charge modes into
finely tuned recipes for success depending on laboratory
studies of optimum performance for each battery
technology . . . AGM, gel and flooded. But if one
compares the way batteries are charged in-situ in
millions of vehicles . . . NONE are treated anything
like the optimized recipe for success. Yet millions
of consumers perceive satisfactory service-life for
their purchase. I.e, I've been stuffing new batteries
into vehicles for 50 years and have returned very
few devices for warranty replacement. The rest performed
well enough to avoid any notions of "Gee, that last
battery was a piece of crap . . . not going to buy
THAT brand again."
I have observed battery performance in the wild
and in aircraft systems for decades. I have concluded
that customers who perceived poor return on investment
for their battery purchase WOULD NOT have found relief
by plugged the thing in the wall every night and punching
the "right" button for AGM, gel or flooded technology.
If you have a battery that demonstrates loss of water
while "plugged in", it is likely that the maintenance
voltage is too high. This would be true of any lead-acid
battery technology.
Bob . . .
